


Managing Expectations

by cotton_prima



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Memory Loss, Reunion Sex, alternative description could be frederick is sad and repressed and robin is confused and horny, the existential fear that everything can be lost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 05:24:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20577191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cotton_prima/pseuds/cotton_prima
Summary: A year after she sacrificed herself to defeat Grima, the Shepherds find Robin again. And again, her memory is gone.





	Managing Expectations

**Author's Note:**

> Three Houses just came out, and here I am, still stuck on FredRob. It's like everyone else has moved on, and I'm sitting in a condemned house muttering "my city now."

She did return to them, eventually.

It was late spring, and the southern fields of Ylisse were bright with wild grasses. The skies had cleared from the previous night’s showers, and tiny white flowers adorned the roadside. It was good riding weather, mild, and with enough breeze to keep the sweat off the horses.

Chrom had set out to search for her as soon as the weather had started to warm. For months he had strained against the snow and ice, his eyes straying to the white horizon. And though Frederick had held his lord back, he shared his worries. What if she was out there, alone in the frost? It had been a great relief to finally set out from the castle, all gallop and thunder after a season of stillness. Chrom, Lissa, and he had ridden out of winter toward the warmth of spring. Toward her, they hoped. Though the months passed with little luck.

Frederick had tried to approach these expeditions with caution. He knew the odds of finding her were slim. Even if the Shepherds searched, the continent was vast, and her soul may never return to it. He understood that, even if Chrom refused to. His lord was stubborn in his belief that they would find her, while doubt came so much easier for Frederick. She had killed a god and her body had scattered with the wind. There could be no coming back from that.

And yet.

_Strategy is the art of managing expectations,_ she had told him once. Despite his wariness, his adherence to reason, Frederick knew he lacked her art for that.

Which was why it was all the more shocking that they found her the way they did. He distrusted his senses, because surely that couldn’t be her sleeping in the very field where they’d first found her. His mind leapt to dark magic, a cruel trick, but Chrom and Lissa had already galloped ahead, dismounting their horses and pulling her up from her bed of grass.

It was Robin.

He rode up to her, aware for the first time in months of the heart beating in his chest. She turned her face up to him, and he practically fell from his horse. There was no strength in his legs when she looked at him like that.

“You’re here,” she said, as if it were his presence that was the miracle. Chrom and Lissa were beaming at them, and he felt close to tears, the joy welling up with no other outlet.

“You came back to us,” he said. He took her in his arms, needing to feel the truth of her weight. She smelled like new earth and sunshine, and there were bits of grass in her hair.

When he pulled back, she looked at him with love. But there was a fog of something else over her expression. She touched his face, her fingertips cold on his cheek.

“I know you,” she said, her voice sweet to hide the panic rising through it. “I’m sorry. But I _know_ you, I’m sure of it.”

He hadn’t expected it to be easy. Of course, he hadn’t really _expected_ her to return. He had only imagined that, should she return, they would go on with the rest of their lives.

That was naïve.

“It is unfortunate, though I cannot say I’m surprised,” Tiki’s letter read when it reached them a month later. “She was born to become a vessel for Grima. To kill the Fell Dragon, her soul was torn to pieces. Even if it has been stitched back together, it must be in a terrible shape. All things considered, losing her memory again is a small price to pay.”

He knew that long before receiving Tiki’s letter. The mere fact that she drew breath should have been enough for him. How many times had he told himself that he would give anything to see her even once more? And it wasn’t as if Robin had lost all her memories. She remembered her feelings for him and the rest of the Shepherds. She recognized them and had been able to recall most of their names when given enough time to think. But the details that colored those names and faces escaped her.

She didn’t remember anything that had happened.

It was like starting over from the moment they first found Robin in that field. They ate bear under the stars (as always, she found it delicious) as they returned Ylisstol. In a way, it felt to him like punishment for not trusting her sooner. Only this time, Robin was the skeptic.

“You’re saying that I was the tactician for the royal army, and that we, along with children who travelled back in time from a ruined future, killed an evil dragon that tried to use me as its vessel?” she asked.

“Well, when you put it like that, I suppose it sounds…implausible,” Chrom admitted from across the campfire.

“But it happened!” Lissa insisted. “It was hard to believe while it was happening, too, but you really did slay a dragon, Robin! You saved everyone!”

Robin frowned, her gaze flitting to Frederick. He nodded, and her frown softened, though it did not vanish.

“If you say so,” she said, turning to the fire. “I do trust you,” she added after a moment. “It’s just a lot to take in.”

_An understatement,_ Frederick thought. He chewed his cut of bear resolutely, but she didn’t comment on it.

“The important thing is that you’re with us now,” Chrom said gently. “You can take all the time you need to get used to everything again.”

Robin nodded, but her troubled gaze remained fixed in the fire.

The Shepherds were thrilled to see her. They hid their disappointment. They smiled and hugged her. They touched her arm and mussed her hair. They spoke carefully around her lost memories.

“Honestly, darling, I didn’t think it was _possible _for someone to forget me.”

“You remember us, but nothing else? Fascinating. You must let me examine you.”

“Does this mean you’ve forgotten all the embarrassing things I’ve said?”

“You don’t remember? Don’t sweat it! Teach doesn’t remember half of what happened either!”

“Don’t sweat it, we can always make new memories!”

Robin was just as excited to see them. She smiled back at them and took their hands in hers. She knew them, she insisted. But when they left her, her enthusiasm wilted into worry.

“This is exhausting,” she admitted to him over supper. “I know them, so why can’t I remember them?” She was staring hard at her slice of meat, working her knife through it until it scraped the plate terribly. Frederick wanted to put his hand over hers.

He kept his hands to himself.

“With time, you might remember them,” he said. She looked up at him, fresh hope in her eyes, and he regretted saying anything.

“You’re not going to sleep?” she asked.

“I have a watch,” he explained, fastening his breastplate. It was a half-truth—Chrom had relieved him for the evening, but Frederick had insisted. It would have sent the wrong message for him to shirk his duties the night Robin returned to the castle.

She sat in her old nightgown, bare shouldered, the bed spreading out flat and wide around her. Frederick dressed under her interested gaze, his skin hot. He could not look her in the eyes. 

“Should I come with you?” Robin asked, her voice touched with anxiety. “Did I do that before?”

“It is a knight’s duty,” Frederick assured her. “You were many things, but not that.”

She crossed her arms, the sheets rustling around her.

“When will you be back?”

“Not for hours.”

“Hours,” she repeated in displeasure. He hovered at the door, waiting for her to say something to chastise or dismiss him. But she didn’t. Her face was trusting and blank with resignation.

“You need not wait for me,” he said. Suddenly, she looked like she might burst into tears, and he regretted his choice of words. “Rest, my dear,” he added.

He slipped out of the room, guilt gnawing at his heels.

Robin stuck to him like she had when she first came to the castle. Although he had allowed it then (Chrom had given him no choice), Frederick had kept her at arm’s length. He’d made her work hard, admittedly too hard, to earn his trust.

This time would be different, he thought. This time he would support her. She was confused and frustrated, straining against her own mind.

“I should feel something, shouldn’t I? _Déjà vu_, perhaps?” she asked him as she leafed through her journals. She frowned at the page, which detailed weather conditions in Plegia. “But it doesn’t feel like it really happened. None of it does.”

If she was lost, his would be a patient, guiding hand. He refamiliarized her with the castle and escorted her into the city. He “introduced” her to old friends and acquaintances, calmly explaining her circumstances each time to soften their dismay. He showed her how to ride a horse and to hold a sword. Unlike the first time he trained her, she was a natural. Her bones remembered such things, even if her head didn’t. He eased her into their home little by little until she could walk the castle with confidence.

But Frederick could not bring himself to touch her.

He was not proud that he took his sleep at the very edge of their bed, or that he took care to keep their fingers from brushing when they walked together. It was achingly lonely, but he wasn’t ready. How could he have prepared himself for this?

“Honestly, Frederick, sometimes I really don’t understand you,” Lissa said. She had cornered him during his watch, when he couldn’t leave without abandoning his post. The princess was intimidating in her anger, though she had grown hardly taller over the years.

“Milady may need to be more specific,” he said, pretending ignorance.

“Why are you avoiding Robin?”

“I am doing no such thing,” he lied. Of course, he wasn’t actually avoiding her—they spent most of the day together. But distance was more than physical proximity.

“Then why,” Lissa said through her teeth, “did she just ask me if you were _really_ married?”

That did sting. Worse, he was barely surprised. He knew the answer, after all.

“What did you tell her?” he asked.

“That you were, obviously,” Lissa snapped. “But it doesn’t matter what I said! The problem is that she asked me at all! Frederick, she looked miserable!”

“I am sorry she asked you,” Frederick said flatly. Lissa’s eyes flashed, and Frederick wondered absentmindedly if she would slap him. But she restrained herself.

“Alright, it’s between the two of you. I get that,” she said. “What I really came to tell you is that you aren’t on watch tonight. I’m having Stahl do it. Whatever’s going on, fix it. And for gods’ sake, talk to your wife!”

Frederick felt himself nodding. He knew it needed to be fixed, and that he was the only one who could do it. He just didn’t know how. He wasn’t even completely sure what was broken.

Robin’s return had made many mundane things surreal. Over the past week, Frederick had come back into habits he thought he’d buried with her (not that she’d had a burial). Hanging out her laundry, for instance, or preparing her favorite tea. Each quiet intimacy became an event. Each was literally brought about by magic. The past didn’t feel real to Robin, but for Frederick, it was the present that felt false. And what if it was?

He wasn’t strong enough to lose her again.

They readied for bed together. Stepping out of his armor, Frederick tried to remember whether silence had been a normal part of their routine. Surely they’d exchanged the odd remark or two. Discussed business, or how their days had went. But upon hearing that he did not have the night watch, Robin was oddly quiet. She brushed her hair with her back toward him, though Frederick was certain she was watching him undress through the bureau mirror. 

He knew ought to say something. Lady Lissa had bid him to fix this, and she had made it clear that he was relieved from duty until he did. But when he thought of making conversation, he found himself at a loss. All of their common ground was forgotten.

“Should I fall asleep before you come to bed?”

Robin’s question was so abrupt that Frederick wondered if he’d heard her correctly.

“Excuse me?”

Robin turned in her chair. She looked as worn out as he’d ever seen her.

“You won’t touch me,” she said, her voice hard as flint. “You stay out until I fall asleep and rise before I wake. What am I supposed to make of that?”

Frederick wished he could answer her question, but even he didn’t know what to make of it. He tried to answer her anyway.

“Robin, I—” he said. But his words stopped there. He may as well have had a rock in his throat. He sat on the bed, his head swimming.

“You told me we were married. That we had a son from the future.” Robin said.

“We are. We do.”

“And that was real? Or was it because…”

“It was because I loved you,” Frederick said before she could imagine any other reason they would marry.

“And did we…would we have sex?”

“Yes,” he said. “Sometimes.”

“But not anymore,” she concluded. “Do you not want to? Do you not want me?”

Frederick took a sharp breath. He wanted. He had wanted her sorely for the past year, holding tight the memory of her touch each night he’d slept alone. But even more than his desire, he was—

“You’re afraid,” Robin realized. “You’re afraid that I’m not myself. That I’m not her.”

“I am,” he admitted. It felt horrible. Robin looked like she might cry again, and he hated it. But it was the truth.

“Do you…resent me? For forgetting? For not being like I was?” she asked. She sounded so small.

“I could never,” he said. “Perhaps I was angry when you…when you died. But the fact that you’re here now is nothing short of a miracle. But that miracle—”

“It wasn’t what you expected,” she said.

“No, it wasn’t. But you are not to blame for that. If there is anyone I resent, it’s myself. I should have known better.”

“Better than to hope?”

“Better than to project my hopes on what I cannot control.”

Robin’s frown deepened. “That sounds like a bleak way to live.”

“You told me that. During the war.”

“Did I? I’m sorry.”

“It was a very pragmatic thing to say.” He paused. “I didn’t fully appreciate how difficult it must have been to practice.”

He remembered how wise she had looked on the battlefield, and how grimly beautiful. Not a knight herself, but holding the fate of a thousand knights in her head. Looking back, perhaps it was exhaustion he’d seen, not wisdom. When she formed her tactics, she didn’t have the luxury to fall back on hope.

“It’s hard to imagine,” she said. “It’s like something that happened in a past life.”

“A past life,” he mused. “We spoke of something like this before, when we were engaged. You didn’t remember your life before meeting me then, either. You were worried that you might be married to someone you couldn’t remember. The thought of forgetting someone you had pledged your life to scared you. And I…I told you that even if you had married someone, that was in a past life. I was selfish.” He smiled at the memory, its cruel irony. “It would be hypocritical of me to change my mind about that now.”

“It’s different,” Robin said quickly. But Frederick shook his head.

“Not so different,” he said. “Then, and now, I’ve been selfish with you. When you chose to sacrifice yourself, I wanted so much to stop you. I wanted to rob the world of you to satisfy myself, and we would have been miserable.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Why?” she pressed.

_Because I was a coward_, he thought almost reflexively. But even he knew that wasn’t truth, only bitterness.

“Because it was your decision to make,” he said finally. Then, with greater effort, “And what about now?”

“Now?”

“What do you want, Robin?” he asked. “To be held by a man you hardly know? A man who is too much of a coward to draw you close? Because that, too, is your choice to make. Not mine.”

“But I _do_ know you,” Robin insisted. She stood from her chair and joined him on the bed, taking his hand in hers. He flinched, but he did not pull away. Her hands were small, strong, and quite real.

“I’m scared too,” she continued. “I’ve been scared from the moment I woke up and everything was blank. And hearing about the person I used to be is…it’s been difficult. Everyone seems to think that I was some great person. They say that just being here is enough, but I know that wasn’t how it used to be. Results matter.”

“We aren’t at war now,” he said.

“But we will be,” she replied with a calm certainty that disturbed him. “I may have lost my memories, but I’m not a fool. Someday, this peace will break, and they might look to me to mend it. But I can’t imagine measuring up to my past self, and the thought of disappointing everyone is awful. When I think about that happening, my chest gets tight and it’s hard to breathe. It’s confusing. Everyone expects something from me, and I don’t know what I’m doing.

But when I saw you in that field, when you said you were my husband, that felt right. That made sense.” She squeezed his hand and looked up at him, her face full of hope. “I don’t remember anything. But I know enough to know that I love you. And I want you, if you’ll have me.”

His eyes grew hot, and he let her take his face in her hands.

“I missed you,” he said.

She kissed him, and he was finally home. Frederick held her, the shape of her back familiar under his hands. It _was _her. Even if she didn’t remember their life together until now, to hold her again was to know her. At last.

Then Robin sighed against his mouth, and a spark leapt within him. He’d waited a year for her to return, and now he was at the end of his patience. He kissed her deeply, and she followed his lead, her mouth as eager as his.

“Is this alright?” she finally asked, breathless. Her fingers curled in his hair.

“It’s perfect,” he replied. Her laughter was bright and nervous.

“It probably won’t be very good,” she said. “I don’t remember what you like.”

“Fortunately, I remember what you like,” he said. He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her onto the bed. Her face flushed.

“Oh,” she breathed. “You do.”

He leaned over her and began to unbutton the top of her nightgown. His fingers moved deliberately. Beneath him, Robin’s breathing quickened. His thumb brushed against her chest, and she shivered.

“I didn’t take you, ah, for a tease,” she gasped.

“It’s not teasing,” he said. “Simply delayed gratification.”

“Hasn’t it been delayed long enough?”

“True.” He pulled her nightgown aside and covered her breast with his hand. She whimpered, her heels digging into the mattress. “You’ve gotten more sensitive.”

“And you…were you always this brazen?”

“Only for you, my dear.”

Frederick ran his hand up her thigh, beneath the cotton hem of her dress. He palmed her through her smallclothes, nudging her legs apart. Her sighs hot against his ear. She had closed her eyes, brow knit in tight pleasure. Her head rolled to the side, bearing the clean curve of her neck. Heart pounding, he bent down and bit her.

Robin yelped and her knee nearly cracked him in the ribs. Frederick all but tumbled off both her and the bed. When he collected himself, she was looking at him with an expression caught between offense and amazement.

“Too much?” he asked.

“I…um…no.” Her mouth bunched up into an embarrassed grin. She touched her neck with tentative fingers, as if she expected to find something there. “Just surprised me, is all. You…you could try that again, if you want.”

“You’re sure?” Frederick asked, leaning over her again.

“I trust you,” she said.

“It will leave a mark,” he warned. She considered this a moment, then shrugged.

“I wear a high collar.”

He nodded, his chest tight. He pressed a kiss against the place he had bit. This time he went slowly, tracing his tongue over her skin and nipping gently at her. The mark formed like a dark petal against her neck, and he could feel her pulse rabbiting against his mouth. Arousal stirred his gut.

_Steady_, he reminded himself, breathing deep. _Don’t lose your head_.

Frederick’s kisses trailed downward, his teeth worrying the top of Robin’s breast. He pushed her skit up to her waist and tugged her smallclothes off. He massaged her hip, then slid his hand between her legs. Her breath caught sweetly. She was slick. Carefully, he worked her open, his thumb brushing against her clit. He curled his fingers, and she gave a small cry, hips arcing into him.

“Good?” he asked.

“Very,” she sighed. She tried to kiss him, but he could think of even better things to do with his mouth.

“Frederick?”

He stroked her hair, smoothing the note of worry from her voice as he pulled away from her. He repositioned himself, hiking Robin’s knees over his shoulders. Before ducking his head down, he glanced up just in time to see his wife’s face flush with realization.

“Oh gods!” she cried when he licked her. Both of her hands were suddenly tugging at his hair, and he groaned against her, his grip on her thighs tightening. It had been so long, but she tasted just as he remembered. The way she writhed beneath him was the same, too.

“Frederick! I’m—ah!”

She came against his mouth, her hips stuttering, her moans dissolving into breathy laughter. Wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist, Frederick sat back, rubbing her leg as Robin rode out her orgasm. She looked at him, eyes sparkling, and he felt dizzy with accomplishment.

“That…that felt great,” she said. Then her eyes flitted down to his crotch. He shifted under her gaze, her scrutiny making him painfully aware of his desire. Robin smiled and touched his arm.

“Come here,” she said. “I want you.”

Hands trembling, he pulled down his pants and carefully hilted himself in her. Robin drew a labored breath.

“Alright?” he asked, want knotting in his throat. She nodded against his shoulder, brushing her lips against his clavicle. Then he felt her hand pat the back of his thigh.

“Don’t hold back,” she whispered.

He didn’t. His hips bucked hard, and she threw her arms around his neck. His pace was fast. Not desperate, but urgent. His year of loneliness, of stoicism, all of it burned away between their bodies. And the burning was torture. It was relief.

He was calling her name, repeating it over and over as she took him. Vaguely, he felt the dull throb of nails against his back, her legs wrapping around his hips. She clenched around him, and his vision blazed white.

Shuddering, he spent inside of her and collapsed into her chest, all the strength seared out of him. Robin stroked the back of his head, and they lay there, sweaty and satisfied, until his senses began to clear. Then he pressed a kiss against her cheek and pulled out of her.

“You’re staying, aren’t you?” she asked as he tucked himself into his pants and threw his legs over the side of the bed. In the afterglow, it took a moment for him to place her anxiety. When he did, he shook his head.

“I’m looking for your smallclothes,” Frederick explained gently. He found them, kicked to the floor, and returned them to her, suddenly shy again.

“You’re staying too?” he asked as she dressed. His doubts and fears, though quieted, were still there. They would always be there. But one look from her quieted his heart.

“Come here,” she said again, patting the bed. He lay down, and she held him, pressing her forehead against his own. “Of course I’m staying. I’m not going anywhere.”

For tonight, at least. But tonight was enough for now.

Robin began to kiss him, then stopped abruptly, her hand flying to her mouth.

“Wait, you ate me out earlier!”

He tried not to laugh, but it must have shown on his face.

“Frederick!”

“I’m sorry. I’ll rinse my mouth.”

“You really love me, don’t you?”

He had brought her to the orchard to see the saplings they had planted after Chrom’s coronation. The last trees of the season had finally come into bloom, and white petals dotted their hair. The morning sun through the apple blossoms cast her face in dappled light.

“You remember?” Frederick asked. Robin smiled and plucked a petal from his shoulder.

“I don’t have to,” she said. “You’ve been cherishing me lately.”

He cleared his throat and fought to keep his blush down. He wasn’t new to courtship, after all. Though reliving theirs wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

“I’m simply making up for lost time,” he explained.

“Hmm, should I cherish you too, then?”

“Aren’t you already?”

She laughed, and the wind picked up again. She held her hair back, and Frederick caught a glimpse of the bruise he’d left on her neck.

“‘To love and to cherish,’ huh?” she said when the wind stilled. “I like that. I think I can cherish you, too.”

“Are you…proposing to me?”

“I didn’t get to the first time, right? And according to Chrom, you proposed to me with meat.”

“Bear meat,” he specified.

“Right. Anyway, yes, I guess I am proposing to you. We’re already married, I know. This is purely a romantic gesture.” Her expression sobered slightly. “Well, not ‘purely.’ I don’t remember being proposed to. I’d like to, though. So I thought I’d go ahead and make a new memory for myself.”

“In that case, I accept,” Frederick said. He took her left hand up and kissed her ring finger.

“I’m still afraid,” she confessed.

“So am I,” he said. “But I love you more than I am afraid.”

“Do you think that’s enough?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I have hope that it is.”

She squeezed his hand. Around them, spring was ending, and the apple trees were shedding their blossoms. The days would become longer, and the air would lose its coolness. There, the future awaited them, veiled and full of threat. When it came for them, they’d face it together. They’d manage.

Robin grinned at him.

“I do, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic from Robin's point of view would just be Mitski's "Me and My Husband" on loop for ten hours.


End file.
